PA's top judge says colleagues snared in porn scandal will 'have to pay the piper'

RON CASTILLE, the chief justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, says any judges snared in the pornographic-email scandal unfolding in Harrisburg at the state Attorney General's Office will "have to pay the piper."

Castille, speaking yesterday on a conference call with reporters, said he has asked Attorney General Kathleen Kane - in a letter Thursday followed by a telephone call - for the names of any judges who sent or received the hard-core pornography. Castille also wants copies of the emails.

"I want to make sure that, if they are involved, they have to pay the piper," Castille said. "It's just sad for us as a branch of government if anyone is involved in this type of activity."

Castille said the emails, if judges exchanged them, could cause problems two ways under the state's Judicial Code of Conduct:

Using state computers to exchange the explicit emails would violate that code. A conflict of interest is also possible if a judge exchanged emails in private with a prosecutor who appeared in his court to argue cases.

"If you're emailing back and forth with the Attorney General's Office as a judge, it might show you have a conflict that will require you to recuse yourself from these cases," Castille explained.

Kane on Thursday put on display for reporters a selection of the emails discovered in the archived in-boxes of top deputies under Gov. Corbett when he held the post of attorney general.

Those emails were found during a review of how Corbett handled the child sexual-abuse case that sent former Penn State assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky to prison.

Kane's staff has connected the emails to former top deputies who went on to high-ranking jobs when Corbett became governor. That includes state Police Commissioner Frank Noonan, Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Chris Abruzzo, former Secretary of Legislative Affairs Chris Carusone, former press secretary Kevin Harley (now an adviser to Corbett's re-election campaign) and Glenn Parno, who oversees oil and gas regulation for DEP.

Corbett has requested copies of all the emails, not just the selection Kane showed reporters.

Lynn Lawson, the governor's communications director, said he is still waiting for Kane to provide him with that information.